Hallelujah
by righthandup
Summary: A one-shot songfic about Hermione's regrets on the day she sees Rose off to go to Hogwarts. DH-compliant, post-series, slightly AU. I suck at summaries, but try reading it anyways?


Hermione sat and cried on the stairs of the shabby house she shared with Ron. Her breath came in desperate, heaving gasps, but she couldn't trouble herself to hold back any longer.

Ron was concerned. She had told him she was sad Rose had left, but it really wasn't Rose at all.

True, she wouldn't be crying if she hadn't gone to see Rose off, but it was truly Malfoy. Malfoy who made her cry, Malfoy who make her happy, and Draco who broke her heart. She had seen him standing next to that pretentious filth Astoria Greengrass at Platform 9 3/4 seeing off their son Scorpius. Scorpius looked so much like Draco it pained her.

She just hadn't stopped crying since.

Hermione hadn't cried like this since her wedding day. She felt had felt heart-breakingly, stomach-twistingly awful for giving herself away to someone that she knew she didn't love. She cried for Ron and for the part of Draco that would've been hurt if he had cared anymore, but mostly she cried for herself.

She had always loved Draco and always would. They'd constantly had this tiny twinge of something there just underneath the surface. That's why it had hurt so much to hear the names he called her, and felt so good to punch his face. That was why she'd been even more interested in bringing him down than Harry. The mere idea of caring as much as she secretly did horrified her. Then, when they had finally admitted to each other their feelings, they just as swiftly knew there would never be a right time.

The War, Voldemort, the death of Dumbledore.. Just lists of things that not only turned their lives upside down on their axises, but made any sort of relationship impossible. So as Draco tended to do when things made whatever he wanted so desperately impossible, he forgot. Forgot quickly, mercilessly, and finally with Astoria.

_I heard there was a secret chord_

_That David played and it pleased the Lord_

_But you don't really care for music, do you?_

_It goes like this, the fourth, __the fifth,_

_ the minor fall, the major lift, _

_the baffled king composing Hallelujah_

Hermione gripped the edge of the stairs until her hands grew numb and burning and white. Ecstasy, Rapture. Anything to get her mind off this intruder who had used pure blood and old family ties to steal the perfect life from her. Ron called something trite and meaningless down the stairs.

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

He was about ready to cart her off to St. Mungo's, he was.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he dimly registered the last time she had cried like this: on their honeymoon. She had sniffed it away, saying it was seasickness, or the food, or that women in her family tended towards bouts of depression.

Anything but the truth he probably knew somewhere underneath layers of comfortable lies: Ron wasn't good enough for her. He was too boring and plain, not smart or fiery or handsome or interesting enough for Hermione.

He'd always more idolized her than loved her. In his heart of hearts, he felt rather as if she'd always wanted to save him more than anything. She'd always saved him.

_Your faith was strong but you needed proof, _

_you saw her bathing on the roof, _

_her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you  
_

_She tied you to a kitchen chair, _

_she broke your throne, she cut your hair, _

_and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah_

The old crackly radio leaked Muggle music that Hermione had charmed it to play. The thing was in a constant state of disrepair, but it was Fred's.

Ron had never been able to part with anything of Fred's after the War, so he and Hermione's small house was filled with joke wands and Fainting Fancies. It only reminded Hermione now that her life was indeed only an old stale joke.

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Maybe I have been here before, _

_I know this room; _

_I have walked this floor,_

_ I used to live alone before I knew you._

_I've seen your flag on the marble arch, _

_love is not a victory march,_

_ it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

Draco adjusted his tie. It was slate grey and matched the rest of his smart suit. It was important that he be dressed to kill.

Malfoys, even in this crazy world that now existed, had a reputation to uphold.

He yelled something brusquely at his wife about some emergency somewhere about something or other. Astoria vaguely spoke something in his direction, but he had no time for her now that Scorpius was gone.

Let her be as upset as she chose, said his instincts. It wasn't as if she had realized that he'd been distant ever since that Weasley fool had been transferred into his department.

His life was like people were now purposefully tormenting him for a dead man's rules. Voldemort's rules, Lucius's rules, it didn't really seem to matter to him whose he'd been following so exactly. They were both dead and withered in their graves, damn their bloody souls to hell, and that was that.

Draco didn't know what he would do if he were out of work… He needed somebody's rules to follow, and if they were the Ministry's, so be it.

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_There was a time you let me know _

_what's real and going on below, _

_but now you never show it to me, do you? (and)_

_Remember when I moved in you; _

_the holy dark was moving too, _

_and every breath we drew was Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

Ron rode the tube downtown, finding the nondescript portal to the Ministry and walking at a damaged clip. His bloody leg, again. It'd been bothering him all morning, ever since Hermione'd come home. Probably weather on the way, or something.

He had no idea why she was in such a state, really.

He'd been hoping that maybe when Rose headed off to start her first term that maybe they could talk about another baby. He, personally, adored them. Hermione never was impatient with the children. Ron always felt a dim feeling of bare tolerance radiating off of Hermione whenever they were alone, but thank Merlin, with the kids, it was hardly ever.

_Maybe there's a God above, _

_and all I ever learned from love _

_was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you_

_And it's not a cry you can hear at night,_

_ it's not somebody who's seen the light, _

_it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelu—jah_

Draco tapped his long, pale fingers on the desktop, waiiiiiiting. He must've called Weasley into his office fifteen minutes ago. Did the bloody git seriously expect him to _keep waiting_?

Just before Draco was obliged to come out of the bloody corner office and find Weasley's ginger pansy ass, he spotted him waving outside of the clear doors. Weasley looked even rather more ridiculous than usual, motioning in a "may I enter, O One who orders my paycheck?" way. Draco waved him in.

"Ronald," Draco drawled in a friendlier tone than usual, "Ronald, come here."

Weasley approached, and was promptly and neatly punched in the face.

"You make Hermione happy, dammit. It's like you're not even trying, you stupid pansy, and she is the most amazing and beautiful person in the entire whole of the planet!" Draco took a ragged breath.

"YOU MAKE HER THE HAPPIEST WITCH IN THE ENTIRETY OF THE UNIVERSE, OR ELSE I WILL PERSONALLY KICK YOUR ASS EVERY DAY UNTIL YOU DIE. I'M SO JEALOUS OF YOU I COULD ACTUALLY KILL YOU AT THIS MOMENT, AND I WON'T HAVE YOU BE THE LUCKIEST MALE I KNOW AND SQUANDER IT," Draco bellowed.

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

Hermione froze, eyes still red and teary, outside the opened glass door. Draco saw her standing there and gasped audibly.

Her arsehole husband just stared dumbfounded, both at Hermione's harshly colored cheeks and the crumpled brown bag that held a forgotten lunch. Draco made some move to say her name, or explain Ron's bloodied nose, or to apologize, but she ran bawling out of the office anyways. Ron knew not what to do, so he limped gutlessly back to his cubicle with the thrown lunch.

Hermione quickened her pace through the quiet streets. It was pouring, pounding rain outside, and the sky was the color of Draco's eyes: grey and unforgiving. The sky was like the steel on the bridge she rapidly approached or like the frothy waters below that suddenly looked so inviting. The sky was deep and cold.

She found her way to the side of the bridge, toes peeking over the edge towards the murky rushing water. Swinging a foot experimentally, she leaned forward and forward… only to feel a large rough hand grab her arm at the last moment of a rapidly widening arc that would've landed her in the water.

"Not hardly, Hermione. Go home."

Draco had dealt the final blow. Hermione closed her eyes, feeling for a minute the stinging rain and the biting feeling of not being able to do what she needed to do. It hurt. It hurt severely and bottomlessly and she knew that all she had to do was step off the steel platform and it would all go away. She wrestled out of his grip and gave him a final bitter smile before taking a step..

.. onto the bridge. She pushed his surprised form away and took his advice. Went step by step home, and ignored Draco's voice in the rain.

"I hope you get everything you want in life, Draco. Damn you."

_Hallelu-u-jah_


End file.
